The invention relates to a clamp for securing a pipe to a supporting structure like for example a wall in a building.
The clamp comprises a base with a foot for being attached to the supporting structure and a head with a seating for in use accommodating a pipe, two walls of the head defining the seating, an entrance for the pipe extending between the two walls, and an U-formed strap for clamping a pipe placed in the seating to the base whereby the strap is having two legs equipped each with a hook for in clamping position engaging opposite contact faces in cavities formed in the foot of the base and a curved bottom for at the same time surrounding the pipe together with the walls of the head.
The term pipe is standing here for an elongated element like a cable, a solid bar, or a pipe like a water pipe, a heating pipe ore a gas pipe.
Pipes are frequently secured to e.g. walls in buildings by means of clamps placed in positions where they risk to be destroyed more or less by accident or vandalism. It therefore is required that the clamps have a construction, which is strong and strenuous to separate.
Another problem consists in the fact that a pipe, which often can be relatively long, expands and contracts with varying ambient temperature and/or the temperature of the medium flowing in the pipe whereby the clamps will be exposed to alternating crosswise acting forces. The clamps therefore should be arranged for being securely and stable attached to the wall.
The clamps also need to be able quickly and easily to securing the pipe to the wall since many clamps frequently are used for installing often-large quantities of pipes required in a building.
Of the same reason the clamps also should have an inexpensive construction.
From the patent FR No. 1.477.777 is known a clamp for securing a pipe to a wall. The clamp has a base with a seating for the pipe and a semicircular strap, which spans the pipe when being attached to the base by means of two hooks engaging each their slit in the top of the thin wall around the seating. The hooks are straight and short and the depth of the cooperating slits is little. The connection between the strap and the base therefore is extremely weak already of that reason. The hooks moreover easily disengage the slits by accidentally or intended opening the strap owing to the semicircular shape of this.
Another problem consists in the fact that the bearing face of the base has a very little area with the result that the securing of the base and thereby of the pipe to the wall will be week and unreliable.
A similar construction is disclosed in the publication GB 1,076,683. The strap is in this case attached to the base by means of dovetail projections engaging dovetail shaped recesses formed in the base. According to this publication is the strap secured to the base by first flexing apart the arms of the strap and then let the projections snap into engagement with the recesses. That means obviously that the engagement should take place in a sideways movement of the projections into the recesses by using only the spring force of the relatively thin strap. The spring force of the strap is however relatively little owing to the arched shape of the strap. The projections therefore easily disengage the recesses by accidentally or intended opening the weak strap. The bearing face of the base has a large extension crosswise the pipe but a little extension into the axial direction of the pipe. That implies that securing of the base and thereby of the pipe to the wall will be unreliable into the axial direction of the pipe where the clamps in dependence of the varying temperatures of the pipe are exposed to alternating crosswise acting forces. This known clamp has a complicated and costly construction, which moreover is laborious and time-consuming to use for fitting a pipe to a support structure.
Similar clamps are known from the documents, DE 77 10 649 U1, DE 86 28 193 U1, FR 1 477 777 A, FR 2 044 993 A and GB 268 497 A.
Common for these known techniques and the techniques of the documents previously mentioned are however that they are somewhat noisy in use and also tend to corrode.
The above-mentioned disadvantages of the prior art clamps for securing a pipe to a supporting structure like for example a wall in a building are according to the present invention remedied by,
in a first aspect of the invention providing a clamp with a construction which allows the secured pipe mainly noiseless to expand or contract in dependence of varying temperatures,
in a second aspect of the invention providing a clamp with a corrosion free construction,
in a third aspect of the invention providing a clamp which have a strong and stable construction,
in a fourth aspect of the invention providing a clamp which have a construction which is strenuously to separate,
in a fifth aspect of the invention providing a clamp arranged for being securely and stably attached to a supporting structure,
in a sixths aspect of the invention providing a clamp able to quickly and easily securing the pipe to a supporting structure,
in a seventh aspect of the invention providing a clamp having a simple and inexpensive construction,
in a eight aspect of the invention providing a clamp having a durable construction,
in a ninth aspect of the invention providing a clamp with a construction which allows the secured pipe mainly noiseless to expand or contract in dependence of varying temperatures,